Robertson gives up Linspire CEO post

To 'maximize purpose'

Michael Robertson has given up day-to-day control of Linspire and is leaving the company in the hands of new CEO Kevin Carmony.

Robertson said, on his blog, that he wants to spend more time with his two other companies, Mp3tunes.com and Sipphone.com, which allows customers to make free long distance phone calls. However, Robertson says he will continue to advise Linspire on strategic matters.

"To maximize my purpose, I have decided to make the move to Chairman of Linspire," Robertson wrote. "I've turned the CEO title over to Kevin Carmony, Linspire's long-time President. He started Linspire while I was still at MP3.com and is officially the first Linspire employee.

"He's a tremendous leader and knows Linspire better than anyone in the world. I'm excited to see him build on Linspire's momentum and take it to the next level where there will be millions of Linspire users. As Chairman, I'm still actively involved with Linspire and care more about it than ever, but this will give me more time to devote to some of my other projects."

Robertson fought a long battle with Microsoft, which didn't like the name Lindows for a Linux product. Finally, Robertson agreed to drop the Lindows name from its software and change it to Linspire. In return, Microsoft dropped its legal action and gave the company $20m. Linspire earlier this year boasted only 350,000 users, half of whom paid for extra services.®